This weekend, Doctor
Who turns 50, and we celebrate a rich history of time travel and wild
adventures. But which of the nearly 250 Doctor Who stories is the best, and
which is the worst? Here's our stab at ranking every single Doctor Who story, in order of quality.

Note: this is based on seeing every Who story that's extant at least once, and in most cases multiple
times. We welcome disagreements, or even attempts to come up with entire
competing rankings. This is a conversation starter, rather than the last word.

For stories that aren't in the archive, we listened to the
audios and in some cases watched telesnap reconstructions. Sorry, no novels or
Big Finish stories included here, because that would be an insane list!

And finally, this list is divided roughly into five
categories: Classics, Good Stories, Decent Stories, Below-Average Stories, and Disappointments.

Classics:

1) Caves of Androzani
- Yes, it really is that good. Peter Davison's final story as the Doctor is
both thrilling and fascinating, thanks to a complex plot, intense performances
and beautifully staged action. The Doctor is dying from the first moments of
the story, and this is all about him making his final hours count.

2) Blink - You
could argue that it deserves the top spot. This insanely inventive story about
stone statues that can get you when you're not looking, and a DVD extra showing
a missing time traveler dispensing
cryptic advice, is still unrivaled, even after years of copies.

3) City of Death - Douglas
Adams co-wrote this witty story about an alien fractured in time, who is
creating duplicate Mona Lisas as part of a ploy to time-travel and erase
humanity from history. The most stylish classic Who, but also the cleverest.

4) The Doctor's Wife
- The TARDIS is made flesh, and we finally get to the bottom of the
Doctor's relationship with his time machine, in this intensely moving story.

5) Midnight - When
the Doctor's gift for being the "cleverest man in the room" is turned
against him, he's at the mercy of human nature at its most revolting, in this misanthropic,
scary story.

6) Vincent and the
Doctor - Of all the "meeting famous people" stories, this is the
most heart-breaking. An astonishing look at art and madness and what being able
to see things that nobody else can see might do to someone.

7) Pyramids of Mars -
justly revered, this story about mummies and pyramids is a great example of
Tom Baker's Doctor coming up with three or four plans to defeat an ultimate
menace... all of which fail. Sutekh is a fantastic villain, and it's great that
we've never seen him since.

8) The Ark in Space -
Years before Ridley Scott's alien, a wasp creature laid its eggs inside
cryo-preserved humans. The Doctor is at his wits' end coming up with plans to
defeat the Wirrn.

9) The Genesis of the
Daleks - The Daleks' origins as space Nazis are fully displayed here, and
the ethical debates in this story are absolutely mind-boggling. Davros is a
master manipulator who gives a human face to the Daleks, in his one really
great outing.

10) Turn Left - a
fantastic alternate-universe story where one little change wrecks everything,
and we see just how bleak things could really get.

11) Dalek - A
single Dalek brings more danger, and more emotional intensity, than a whole
fleet. The Doctor's arch-enemies have never been more iconic. Or tragic.

12) The Deadly
Assassin - The Master returns and the Doctor's people are redefined
forever. The show's penchant for gothic horror and twisty intrigue is at its
absolute best here, and Tom Baker seems determined to prove he doesn't need a
companion, by giving enough of a performance for three time-travelers.

13) The Empty
Child/The Doctor Dances - The creepy gasmask people are a huge part of
making this such a memorable epic — but a lot of the magic also comes from the
introduction of Captain Jack, and the Doctor's determination to save absolutely
everbody.

14) The Robots of
Death - This is such a brilliant story, in which the alien robot-dependent
society is beautifully depicted and thought-out. Mostly structured as a murder
mystery, but it opens up a ton of questions about identity and subaltern
relationships, with loads of witty dialogue.

15) The Curse of
Fenric - the "dark Doctor" story to end all "dark
Doctor" stories — facing an ancient evil from the Dawn of Time, the
Doctor is willing to manipulate everyone, including his companion Ace. So much
cleverness and creepy darkness, you can forgive the dodgy vampire effects.

16) Rose - The
best introduction to the Doctor, this story is all about the mystery of the
time traveler who brings death in his wake. There's a reason why this story was
such a captivating launch to the new series.

17) The Waters of
Mars - The real horror here isn't the water zombies killing everyone on an
isolated base — it's what happens when the Doctor decides to throw out the
rulebook and do what he wants.

18) Earthshock - one
of those stories where the Doctor is trying to outwit an alien menace, and
keeps coming up with things on the fly in the face of worsening odds. It all
leads to the first death of a companion since the 1960s, and by far the most
shocking.

19) The Girl in the
Fireplace - probably the best "unstuck in time" story, where the
Doctor meets Reinette at various points in her life, and winds up shaping her
life story only to lose her after they share an intense intimacy.

20) A Christmas Carol
- There are lots of time-warping stories on this list, but this one uses
temporal pokery in the service of a great story, where the Doctor tries to
change a harsh man to save his friends, only to find that it's not as simple as
he'd hoped.

21) The Christmas
Invasion - The Doctor's absence for a good part of this story defines just
how essential he is, and his intervention in the final minutes is fantastic to
watch. And then we see just how ruthless he can be, when humanity disappoints
him.

22) The Pandorica
Opens/The Big Bang - The Doctor is put in an inescapable prison to stop the
universe being destroyed, which turns out to be a bit of a miscalculation on
everybody's part. The Doctor's hubris, but also his kindness and
self-sacrifice, are on full display here — and then there's a jolly wedding.

23) The Silurians - the
first meeting with the creatures who owned Earth before humanity, in which the
morality is murkier than ever. Despite its insane length, this story keeps
coming up with creepy new plot twists, notably the deadly plague halfway
through.

24) School Reunion - the
return of Sarah Jane Smith, in a touching story about what happens to the
people whose lives have been touched by the Doctor. Plus there are creepy bat
aliens who are turning kids into super-geniuses for evil reasons.

25) Human Nature/The
Family of Blood - The Doctor chooses to become human, but he doesn't expect
to find romance. Nor does he expect some bloodthirsty aliens to track him down
and wreak havoc, on the eve of World War I.

26) The Eleventh Hour
- The freshly regenerated Doctor has just minutes to save the Earth, with
no technology at his disposal, which just forces him to be even more
resourceful than usual.

27) The Impossible
Planet/The Satan Pit - a great foray into horror, in which Satan claims the
humans on a planet orbiting a black hole, but the Doctor outwits the Devil.

28) Father's Day - a
great cautionary tale about time travel, in which Rose tries to fix her
greatest tragedy, only to break everything else.

29) Bad Wolf/The
Parting of the Ways - The "reality TV" spoofs are kind of off kilter,
but the Daleks are pretty intense, and the Doctor's final choice between
ruthlessness and "cowardice" is astonishing. Even a bit of a deus ex
machina ending can't wreck this party.

30) The Edge of
Destruction - a "bottle" episode set inside the TARDIS turns out
to be a brilliant exploration of madness and the travelers' telepathic bond
with the Doctor's time machine.

31) Utopia/The Sound
of Drums/Last of the Time Lords - This three-part story brings back the
Master in amazing style, putting the Doctor through the wringer as the Master
enslaves the entire human race. Your view of this one depends on how much the
somewhat miraculous ending bothers you.

32) The Time Warrior
- our first meeting with the cloned warrior race, the Sontarans. And a
great "meddling with history" story, in which the Doctor is at his
absolute most swashbuckling.

33) The Moonbase - Let's
hope the upcoming DVD release will give this amazing tale of Cybermen attacking
the Moon the love it deserves. Neil Gaiman cited it as an inspiration for
"Nightmare in Silver."

34) The Crusades - possibly
the best historical story, this epic shows the costs and dilemmas of war, while
going out of its way to show complex characters on both sides.

35) Tomb of the
Cybermen - really hard to choose between this one and "Moonbase"
- the Cybermen are even creepier here, turning people into Cybermen and slowly
defrosting in a justly famous sequence.

36) Rise of the
Cybermen/The Age of Steel - The Cybermen get reintroduced, in an
alternate-universe story that finally emphasizes their main point: the way they
tear down people's humanity and turn them into emotionless machine-people.

37) The Power of the
Daleks - Based purely on telesnap reconstructions and clips, this is a
marvelous story in which the endangered Daleks are at their most cunning — but
they face a brand new Doctor, who's at his most unpredictable.

39) The Dalek
Invasion of Earth - a future Earth overrun by Daleks and their cyborg
slaves, and a totally classic story of love and sacrifice.

40) Amy's Choice - Amy
has to choose between two different worlds, at least one of which is a dream —
but more than that, she has to decide what she values. The Dream Lord is like a
scary mirror version of the Doctor.

41) The Pirate Planet
- Douglas Adams' other story
(we'll skip his unfinished "Shada") is a weirdly campy story of a
pirate captain who commands an entire decadent planet. There are enough clever
ideas in here for a dozen stories, and K9's showdown with a robot parrot is a thing of beauty.

42) The Fires of
Pompeii - The perennial theme of not being able to play god with history
has one of its best realizations here, as the Doctor has to let Pompeii die in
a volcanic eruption. But maybe not everybody has to die?

43) The Face of Evil
- an alien computer has schizophrenia and it's the Doctor's fault. The two
societies the evil computer has created are kind of a fascinating sociological
experiment, and it's great to watch Tom Baker grappling with being the Devil or
God, to different people he meets.

44) Robot - Tom
Baker's first story is just nonstop fun, including a robot with an oedipus
complex and some evil technocrats. Baker keeps everybody else on their toes,
and Sarah Jane Smith gets to show some initiative.

45) The Impossible
Astronaut/Day of the Moon - The Doctor's apparent death kicks off a wild
adventure, including Richard Nixon and the horrifying Silence. Steven Moffat's
writing is seldom more inventive and unnerving than it is here, even if the
overarching plot is a bit half-baked.

46) The Massacre - considered
an all-time classic for a reason.
William Hartnell is great as the Doctor and his doppelganger, the Abbot. And
the Doctor struggles with his companion Steven's inability to understand why
they have to let innocent people die in a historical bloodbath. The final
scenes are heart-breaking.

47) Evil of the Daleks
- the "final" end of the Daleks, in which the Doctor engineers a
civil war between humanized and regular Daleks. Some amazing stuff here,
including remorseful Victorian mad scientists and Daleks playing trains, plus
the first meeting with the Emperor Dalek.

48) Terror of the
Autons - our first meeting with the Master, the Doctor's arch-nemesis. The
plastic monsters, the Autons, are put to much scarier and more horrible uses
this time around.

49) Army of
Ghosts/Doomsday - Mostly memorable for the Dalek/Cybermen smackdown,
although it also has the ultra-emotional departure of Rose, and the downfall of
the never-too-formidable Torchwood London.

50) Ghost Light - a
story about Victorian naturalists and Darwinism, in which an alien doesn't
understand evolution. The whole thing is so heavily stylized and clever that
you can feel the show's ambition to be not just a good story, but actual Art.

Good Stories:

51) Silence in the
Library/Forest of the Dead - A planet-sized library is haunted by killer
shadows, and Donna gets trapped in virtual reality. The skeletons in
spacesuits, repeating their last words, are creepy as fuck. The stuff about how
women can either be beautiful or smart is less awesome.

52) The Next Doctor -
A lot of Doctor Who stories find new ways to ask who the Doctor is, and
what he means — and this story of a man who becomes "the next
Doctor" gets at the essence of the heroic time traveler in a particularly
neat way.

53) Snakedance - the
return of the snake monster from "Kinda," in which Tegan is possessed
by evil and the Doctor must go outside his usual comfort zone to win. Kind of a
beautiful story.

54) The Lodger - When
the Doctor has to deal with ordinary everyday life, it's often fascinating —
but it's seldom as hilarious as in this story. Best bit: the Doctor's ominous
speech about not allowing soccer destruction.

55) The End of Time -
David Tennant's swansong is a mixture of brilliant emotional moments, and
over-the-top lunacy from the Master, who goes around eating people and then
turns everyone on Earth into himself.

56) Hide - There
are a lot of ghost stories on this list, but this is definitely one of the
best, thanks to an atmospheric storyline and a neat explanation for who/what
the ghost actually is.

57) A Good Man Goes
to War/Let's Kill Hitler - The resolution to the "Amy's baby"
storyline, and the origin of River Song. The Doctor's hubris causes him to lose
a dreadful battle, and then he almost dies — but love saves him.

58) Mawdryn Undead - The
Doctor is reunited with his old friend the Brigadier in a nifty story about
time-warping and memory loss, in which two time periods have to come together
to solve a puzzle and save the Doctor's life.

59) The Snowmen - There
are some evil snowmen and a plot to use an ice governess to take over
everything. But the main focus of this story is on a fairytale version of the
Doctor who's withdrawn from the world, living on a cloud and refusing to save
people any longer.

60) The God Complex -
intensely disturbing and skin-crawling. Everyone is trapped in a hotel that
shows you your deepest fears, but it turns out fear isn't what kills you. This
story takes the show's age-old themes about the Doctor's effect on the people
around them, and makes them new.

61) Smith and Jones -
a nifty "companion introduction" story, in which a hospital is
zapped to the Moon and the Doctor has to save all the people there from
over-zealous rhinoceros cops, who want to kill everyone to get one nasty alien.

62) Talons of Weng
Chiang - On the one hand, it's a lovely Victorian confection where the
Doctor and Leela interact with hilarious 19th-century people and outsmart the
time-traveling Magnus Greel. On the other, it's full of Asian stereotypes and
dodgy rats, plus the real villain barely turns up until the final two episodes.

63) The Girl Who
Waited - one of the best examples of a time-paradox story that really
works, as Amy ages decades in a short time and has to deal with being
apparently abandoned by the Doctor and Rory — and then there's another,
younger Amy.

64) Dinosaurs on a
Spaceship - The dinosaurs look marvelous, and this story manages to make
you mourn for a dead triceratops, even as a whole spaceship is in imminent
danger. Pure insane fun.

65) The Beast Below -
The Doctor faces an impossible choice, and all of humanity is amnesiac and
complicit in an atrocity, in this insanely dark story where Matt Smith shows
genuine outrage at our inhumanity.

66) Tooth and Claw - Kung-fu
monks and a werewolf menace Queen Victoria, but she's got a secret weapon she
doesn't even know about. Kind of glorious in its madness.

67) Voyage of the
Damned - There's nothing especially brilliant about this story of a space
Titanic almost crashing into Earth, except for its nonstop frenetic fun and its
successful mimicry of action-movie production values. And the fate of Kylie
Minogue's Astrid is a little tear-jerking.

68) The Daleks - The
first appearance of the Doctor's warlike cyborg foes is basically a long
adventure serial with a message about rejecting pacifism. The Daleks don't really
come into their own until they invade Earth.

69) The End of the
World - The Doctor takes Rose to see the destruction of Earth, in the far
future, showing that some things are inevitable — and then they're nearly
killed by a disaster of their own. It's all a way for the Doctor to share his
grief over his people's death.

70) The Carnival of
Monsters - The Doctor is trapped inside a "peepshow" run by a
buffoonish showman, along with some terrifying monsters. Pure zany fun, with a
smidgen of alien politics. I often say, "Don't blame me, I voted for
President Zarb."

71) The Time Meddler
- our first meeting with another Time Lord, and a fun adventure in which we
discover that history actually can be changed — it's just not a good idea.

72) The Sun Makers - a
satire on taxation, but also just on bureaucracy and corporatocracy generally.
The Doctor basically runs rings around a dystopian regime, and it's kind of
beautiful to watch.

73) The Long Game - Two
reasons to love this story: Simon Pegg as a news editor who's not ashamed to be
working for an evil ice slug. And the bait-and-switch of Adam, who appears to
be a brand new companion until he screws up massively.

74) The Wedding of
River Song - Once again, the universe is off its hinges, and only the
Doctor's "death" will fix everything. The world where time has
stopped flowing normally is a fun notion, but as the resolution to the year-long
"Death of the Doctor" arc (and of the Doctor's courtship with River)
it leaves a bit to be desired.

75) Planet of the Ood
- Those charming telepathic servants from "The Impossible Planet"
turn out to be even more oppressed than we realized, in a story that makes some
harsh points about our complicity in exploitation.

76) The Angels Take
Manhattan - Bits of this Weeping Angels story are heartbreaking, especially
the Elderly Rory who's grown old without Amy. And the River/Doctor relationship
is never better than it is here. Too bad the actual story is a bit silly,
especially the big sight gag, and the ending relies too much on arbitrary
rules.

77) Partners in Crime
- Most of the plot mechanics in this story involve the Doctor being
reunited with Donna, after a series of "oops you just missed him/her"
pantomime mishaps. But the actual plot, involving fat pills that work too well,
is both creepy and a bit flimsy.

78) Warrior's Gate - a
mind-twisting puzzle, in which slavers are trapped in a null dimension where
their slaves were once masters. Watch it more than once for the full effect.

79) The Unquiet Dead
- Charles Dickens appears in this ghost story — which is most notable for
being a tale in which the Doctor seriously considers making a radical change to
history, becuase he can.

80) Spearhead from
Space - Jon Pertwee's first story has a few great moments, notably when the
shop window dummies come to life and kill people. Pertwee is trying to do a
more comedic performance as the Doctor, and there are also a lot of random
subplots, like the poacher who's hiding a deadly meteorite.

81) Survival - Along
with "Ghost Light," this is the other story to deal with
"Survival of the Fittest" as a theme — by stranding the Doctor on a planet
where you must become predator or prey. It's heavy-handed as hell, and the cheetah
people look ridiculous — but the story about Ace almost turning into a killer
makes it all worthwhile.

82) New Earth - Cat
nurses in a future hospital turn out to have a terrible secret, but meanwhile,
the evil Cassandra has found a way to take over other people's bodies, allowing
David Tennant and Billie Piper to do Zoe Wanamaker impressions.

83) Remembrance of
the Daleks - All of a sudden, the Doctor is dark and mysterious again, and
he has some scheme of his own in the midst of a Dalek civil war. As long as you
don't think too much about the plot, the metaphors about fascism and racism are
enough to make this a fascinating watch.

84) The Masque of
Mandragora - Renaissance Italy is threatened by a superintelligent fireball
that hijacked the TARDIS. A lovely costume drama in which the aura of menace is
actually quite palpable.

85) The Daleks'
Master Plan (including Mission to the Unknown) - a baker's dozen episodes,
in which the Daleks try to take over the galaxy and the Doctor is the fly in
their ointment. There's enough cool moments here to make up for a massively
padded storyline — and this is the first story where the Doctor really
grapples with the deaths of people he cares about.

86) Frontios - Burrowing
creatures are destroying a human colony in the far future — and they cause
Turlough to go catatonic with fear, due to a long-buried race memory of them.
Some super-creepy moments here, even if the Doctor's victory is far too easy.

89) The Mind Robber -
The first episode, where the TARDIS crew is trapped in limbo, is one of the
show's best. The final episode, where the Doctor duels the Master of Fiction,
is also great. The stuff in the middle is the closest Who has ever come to feeling like a pure children's show.

90) The Ribos
Operation - Robert Holmes' final comedy story is also the first story in a
linked set of episodes about the "Key to Time." But mostly, it's a jolly
story about con artists and rogues and fanatics all trying to outwit each
other, on a backwater planet.

91) The Sontaran
Experiment - A single Sontaran is doing sadistic experiments on humans, and
the Doctor goes to extreme lengths to stop him. Basically a throwaway
two-parter, but full of creepiness and swashbuckling.

92) The Ice Warriors
- our first sight of the Martian warriors is pretty fun, despite some very
clunky acting and a simplistic, draggy debate over science. The Ice Warriors
have a wonderfully sardonic, sadistic streak here.

93) Cold War - This Ice Warrior sequel, set
on a submarine in the 1980s, is every bit the equal of the original story,
playing up the Ice Warrior's sense of honor but also of ruthlessness. Plus
David Warner is fantastic as a guy who just wants to know what happened to
Ultravox.

94) The Runaway Bride
- The first story featuring Donna Noble is a wedding disaster, in which her
groom turns out to be using her to cozy up to an evil spider lady. The
interplay between the Doctor and the outraged Donna is pretty great.

95) Nightmare in
Silver - This story does a nice job of making the Cybermen dangerous again,
and the character of Porridge is one of the most memorable guest stars in the
past few years. But the subplot where the Doctor plays chess against his
Cyber-possessed other self Mr. Clever doesn't quite gel.

96) The Five Doctors
- Writer Terrance Dicks has nothing nice to say about this story where the
Doctor and his former selves compete for immortality. But it's surprisingly fun
and filled with cool moments — and Peter Davison holds up amazing well against
his predecessors.

97) Resurrection of
the Daleks - another story whose writer has declared it to be crap. But
despite a nonsensical storyline and way too much gratuitious death, this is an
exciting tale in which the Daleks are allowed to be menacing for the first time
in forever.

98) The Seeds of Doom
- Imagine if "Day of the Triffids" involved plants that could
control all other plant life. You'd get this engaging thriller, in which the
real monsters are the humans, especially the psycho billionaire Harrison Chase.

99) Vengeance on
Varos - a weird political satire, in which politicians who lose popular
votes of confidence get electrocuted, and try to distract the viewers with bloodsports.
Kind of half-baked, but the half that works is terrific.

100) Aliens of
London/World War Three - Flatulant overweight people are actually aliens,
bent on causing a nuclear war. This story has a ton of great ideas, including the
Doctor returning Rose home months too late, and the Doctor figuring out what
species the alien Slitheen are based on random clues.

Decent Stories:

101) The Brain of
Morbius - A mad scientist tries to resurrect an insane Time Lord on Karn
(the planet where Paul McGann's Doctor recently showed up). An overplayed
Frankenstein pastiche, but Philip Madoc makes it work. (See below for another
instance of Madoc magic.)

102) The Aztecs - This
story has a great reputation, because it deals with questions of tampering with
history for the first time in the show's history. But it's also simplistic,
boiling Aztec culture down into two men: one enlightened, and one barbaric.

103) The Idiot's
Lantern - a 1950s-set story in which television is erasing people's faces,
and there turns out to be an evil entity named The Wire, plotting to devour
millions of people's souls.

104) Revelation of
the Daleks - a fascinating satire in which a cryogenic funeral parlor is
converted into helping with A) cannibalism and B) Dalek engineering. Featuring a
campy DJ. It's kind of an insane trip, but definitely an off-kilter pleasure.

105) Fury from the
Deep - I know people who saw this one when it was first broadcast, and
still get nightmares. Scary foam, evil seaweed, and the ultra-creepy Oak and
Quill make for a terrifying epic.

106) The Claws of
Axos - Aliens bearing gifts? Surprisingly not that benign. And the Master
is working with them, of course. The fast pace and crackling interplay between
the Doctor and the Master rescue this story from some dodgy performances.

107) The Leisure Hive
- Tom Baker's era gets a new lease on life, and then he's promptly aged
into senility. This story is popping with cool ideas about tachyons and
time-manipulation, plus an intricate backstory about a space war. But it's also
wonderfully stylish.

108) Terror of the
Zygons - newly on DVD. The dodgy Loch Ness Monster drags this story down,
but otherwise it's a solid horror epic featuring evil shape-changers in
Scotland.

109) The Invasion - hard
to love a story with this much outrageous padding, but the brilliantly filmed Cybermen
invasion of London is a joy to watch, and this is one of the better "alien
invasion of Earth" stories.

110) The Hungry
Earth/Cold Blood - In this new version of "The Silurians," humans
almost succeed in making piece with our predecessors — but it falls apart in
the end. Memorable more because of what happens to Rory in the final moments
than anything to do with the peace talks breaking down.

111) The Doctor's
Daughter - Apparently, it's dead easy to create a new almost-Time Lord, and
the result is perky and a bit homicidal. The heart of this story isn't about the
Doctor learning to be a parent to his precocious offspring, but about the
Doctor confronting his grief over his dead race from a different angle.

112) The Shakespeare
Code - another story where we meet a historical figure. This time,
Shakespeare's lost play is the key to opening a dimensional thingy for some
witches.

113) Revenge of the
Cybermen - a nonstop fast-paced adventure where the Doctor has to keep
improvising to stop a handful of Cybermen from blowing up a planetoid made of
their one weakness: gold. This story gets a bad rap because the Cybermen are a
bit off but it's non-stop fun.

114) Closing Time - a
sequel to "The Lodger" in which the Doctor helps look after a baby,
and Cybermen turn out to be lurking in a department store. Let down rather
badly by the pat ending, but overall a fun outing.

115) The Day of the
Daleks - The recent DVD reconstruction makes this story look way neater. Mostly
worth it for the neat time paradox where the rebels fighting the Daleks are
causing their own evil future to come to pass, and the Doctor's indignation at
seeing future humans enslaved.

116) The Bells of St.
John - The whole "evil wifi is sucking people into cyberhell"
plot is kind of forgettable — but the battle of wits between the Doctor and
Miss Kizlet is really fun.

117) The Keeper of
Traken - the Master returns, and mostly outwits the Doctor, in a story that
sees the Doctor struggling to catch up for most of its running time.

118) Boom Town - an
epilogue of sorts to the Slitheen saga, in which the Doctor has to figure out
what to do with the last remaining Slitheen conspirator. The scenes of the
Doctor having to talk to one of his enemies for once are pretty neat.

119) 42 - a
much-maligned adventure where the Doctor and Martha are trapped on a ship
that's going to blow up, with people who've been infected with some kind of solar
madness. As a corking great space adventure, it's not bad.

120) The Happiness
Patrol - The political metaphors are maybe a bit too heavy-handed, and it's
a ripoff of a story from a Monty Python book, but the tale of a planet where
it's illegal to be sad is kind of a delicious confection. And Sylvester McCoy
really works it.

121) The Web of Fear
- Scary encounters in dark tunnels are a staple of Doctor Who, and the
tunnels have seldom been darker and scarier than in this story about the Yeti
taking over the London Underground.

122) Logopolis - a
strange meditation on entropy, as the Doctor faces his own impending death and
the possible death of the entire universe. A moody, dark saga about
computational engineering, that never quite gels as a story and has a
nonsensical ending.

123) The Daemons - worth
it just for the Master pretending to be a Christian minister while leading a
quasi-Satanic cult. A charming but ultimately lightweight story where Satan
turns out to be an alien who wants to judge humanity.

124) The Ark - one
of the cleverest uses of time travel in the show's history, as the story skips
forward in the middle, making for a creepy cliffhanger. In general, this story
keeps springing enough surprises to keep you guessing.

125) Enlightenment - a
terrific story about telepathic aliens who live outside time, having a solar-sail
race with human crewmembers. Avoid the weird shortened "movie
version" on the DVD.

126) The Green Death
- Jo Grant's departure is so intense and emotional, it overshadows this
whole tale about giant maggots and an evil supercomputer. Which is fun, but no
great shakes.

127) The War Games - Ignore
the fact that the evil plot here makes no sense, and you've got a bracingly
insane metaphor for how war brainwashes people into committing immoral acts.
The first meeting with the Doctor's own race, the Time Lords, is just the
capper. That said, ten episodes is way too long for the actual amount of story
here.

128) Castrovalva - Peter
Davison's first story as the Doctor sees him trapped inside an M.C. Escher
drawing by the Master. Davison puts a lot into portraying a Doctor who's
struggling to remember who he is, but the Master's final maniacal performance
kind of wrecks everything.

129) The Sontaran
Strategem/The Poison Sky - The Sontarans swap military strategy for
sneakiness, in one of those "new innovation turns out to be deadly"
stories that Who does a lot. This
time around, a car nav system and emissions-free engine is deadly. The best bit
is Donna taking on a Sontaran by herself.

130) Full Circle - one
of my favorite late Tom Baker stories. The plot is actually pretty clever, even
if it might make a biologist scratch his or her head, and the stuff with evil
spiders is quite creepy.

131) The Tenth Planet
- The actual story is not that great. The Cybermen are super-unimpressive
in their first outing, and episode three lacks both the Cybermen and the
Doctor, due to William Hartnell's illness. But Hartnell's final performance as
the Doctor, squaring off with the Cybermen and then going to his death, is
amazing.

132) The Lazarus
Experiment - A mad scientist figures out a way to rejuvenate himself, but
then turns into a monster. Mark Gatiss has a blast being a monster, but the
overall story feels a bit too tidy.

133) The Invasion of
Time - The Doctor becomes president of his home planet, and then turns traitor
(but he has a secret plan.) Kind of a mess, but also kind of glorious, thanks
to Tom Baker going way over the top as a psychotic dictator.

134) Seeds of Death -
the Ice Warriors' plan for taking over the future Earth is kind of insane
and awesome, and the parable about not depending on one form of transportation
is neat, if a bit labored.

135) Planet of the
Spiders - Jon Pertwee's swansong is kind of a mess, with a single episode
devoted to a bloated chase scene and a lot of time spent on giant-spider politics.
But if you delve into it, there's a beautiful parable about the Doctor
overcoming his own selfishness and facing his fear, at the end of his life.

136) Planet of the
Daleks - It's definitely better than "The Chase" (see below).
Terry Nation recycles a lot of old Dalek ideas, but also adds some new stuff
like the Daleks trying to become invisible. As an example of Nation's
"getting into one scrape after another" style of storytelling, it's
quite fun.

137) The Chase - what
it says on the tin. The Daleks chase the Doctor around the universe for six
episodes, until they get killed by nondescript robots. Some amusing moments,
but that's it.

138) Victory of the
Daleks - basically, just an excuse to have the Daleks in World War II,
serving tea and being the British Army's best friends. The actual plot is
better left forgotten, and seems designed to introduce new Daleks that nobody
liked — but the Spitfires and Union Jack-sporting Daleks are pretty great.

139) A Town Called
Mercy - a jolly Western in which the town doctor is actually a war
criminal. This story would be over in about fifteen minutes if the Doctor
didn't act out of character, but it's got some interesting things to say about
guilt and redemption.

140) The Three
Doctors - It's lovely just to watch Patrick Troughton and Jon Pertwee
bouncing off each other, but the actual story is kind of naff, and contains
arguably the worst monsters in the show's history.

141) The Rebel
Flesh/The Almost People - In the future, people use flesh avatars to go into
dangerous situations, but then the flesh avatars gain sentience. Or maybe they
always had sentience — it's not clear. In any case, they have an uprising, and
a duplicate of the Doctor is caught in the middle. This story raises tons of
ethical questions, then brushes them aside when they become inconvenient.

142) The Unicorn and
the Wasp - a joyous romp in which Agatha Christie teams up with the Doctor
to solve a murder mystery. Nothing to write home about, but there are some fun
moments here.

143) The Curse of
Peladon - I had rosy memories of this one, and recently rewatched it with
friends. Its debates over whether a medieval planet should join the galactic
Federation aren't as gripping as I'd remembered, and the conspiracy seems kind
of flimsy. But still fun, and the exciteable Alpha Centauri is great.

144) The Name of the
Doctor - the most recent Doctor Who
story, which contains (as usual) a ton of audacious concepts. Including the
Doctor's giant-TARDIS tomb, and a forgotten incarnation. As an actual story,
though, it's a non-starter. Richard E. Grant wants to do something completely
abstract, and Clara does something completely abstract to stop him, and there's
about 40 minutes of everybody standing around talking about abstractions.
Sometimes you need footage of people standing on the edges of rooftops, alongside
a big threatening red button, to make things concrete.

145) Planet of Evil -
a Jekyll-and-Hyde story on an alien planet featuring deadly antimatter
creatures. The creepy jungle is unusually effective, and the scene where the
Doctor encourages Sorenson to kill himself is chilling.

146) Asylum of the
Daleks - The Daleks enlist the Doctor's aid to deal with their own insane
and damaged siblings, and there's an interesting notion in here about how the
Doctor has made the Daleks more hateful — which never quite gels. Meanwhile, a
lot of time is spent on an Amy/Rory rift that comes out of nowhere and then
goes back there again.

147) The Rings of
Akhaten - A little girl is supposed to sing to a sleeping god, but then the
god wakes up and wants to eat her soul instead. Only the Doctor and Clara stand
in the way. The good parts are all the weird aliens and the flying motorcycle
action. The bad parts are the attempts to use sentimentality and boastfulness
as a plot resolution for the umpteenth time.

148) The Doctor, The
Widow and the Wardrobe - a Narnia knock-off, in which a mother's love saves
the day (making a change from a father's love, I guess.) The first half of this
story shows immense promise, as an exploration of a family grieving at
Christmas, until we meet the tree people and the plot gets sillier and more
random.

149) The Abominable
Snowmen - a 1940s-set adventure in which the Yeti threaten a monastery, and
a British explorer has to stop being such a jerk. The best part is the creepy
sibilant Padmasambhava,
possessed by the Great Intelligence.

150) Gridlock - There's
a planet where people are stuck in traffic for years, but it turns out to be
part of a larger conspiracy. You have to imagine Russell T. Davies wrote this
story after a particularly vexing trip to L.A., just to have an excuse to vent.
On the plus side: lots of cat people!

Below-Average Stories:

151) Planet of the
Dead - The Doctor and a sassy jewel thief get trapped on an alien desert
planet, swarming with deadly flies, and have to make their escape before
they're devoured. Kind of a fun diversion, but the lack of chemistry between
the Doctor and his one-time companion is an issue.

152) Vampires of
Venice - a perfectly jolly story in which the titular vampires are stealing
young women for nefarious purposes, and their secret is pretty clever. But
mostly, the focus here is on Rory's first trip in the TARDIS and his struggling
relationship with Amy — and Rory's best moments are yet to come.

153) The Creature
from the Pit - an underrated story in which an alien who can create metal
travels to a planet that suffers from a metal shortage... but the planet's
ruler wants to keep her monopoly on metals. Unfortunately, it's beyond campy,
and is let down by the whole "tentacle fellatio" sequence.

154) An Unearthly
Child - If you could split off the masterful first episode, this would rank
way higher. As it is, three episodes of Shakespearean cave-people drag it way down.

155) The Time of
Angels/Flesh and Stone - The Weeping Angels return, in a story which sees
them breaking necks and monologuing instead of sending people back in time and
being silently menacing. This story suffers somewhat from a resolution that's
entirely to do with the ongoing storyline of the Crack in Time, which means it
doesn't stand on its own that well.

156) The Crimson
Horror - There's some metaphor about Victorian repression buried in this
story about a workhorse whose proprietor has an evil scheme that turns people
bright red — but it's lost in a madcap adventure, featuring Diana Rigg giving
a beautifully loony performance.

157) The Greatest
Show in the Galaxy - a "scary clown" story in which the real
monsters turn out to be ancient elder gods. A lot of this story is spent on
silly ideas that don't pay off, and pointed satires of the show's own fans —
but the ending is genuinely great.

158) The Space Museum
- The creepy first episode, in which the TARDIS crew sees their own
terrible future, is marvelous. The silly romp that follows has its moments.

159) The Invisible
Enemy - The Doctor is taken over by an alien virus, and has to duplicate
and shrink himself, so he can go inside his own brain and fight it. Completely
ludicrous and wacky, but also mad fun. And our first meeting with K9!

160) Night Terrors - a
lightweight, somewhat creepy tale where our heroes go inside a child's bedroom
cupboard to confront the scary things inside — only to find that the child
must face his own fears. Nothing to write home about, but engaging enough.

161) The Power of
Three - the notion of a threat that moves so slowly that the Doctor has to
hang around is a brilliant setup, but the payoff is somewhat lacking.
Especially when we actually meet the somewhat underwhelming power behind the
cubes.

162) Love and
Monsters - If it weren't for the last five minutes of this story, it would
get a much higher ranking. A group of ordinary people bond over their obsession
with the Doctor, until they get manipulated by the evil Absorbaloff. The final
moments are just pure ick.

163) Journey to the
Center of the TARDIS - Clara is trapped inside a potentially deadly TARDIS,
and the Doctor has to blackmail a salvage crew into going inside to help rescue
her. A nifty look at some of the secrets inside the Doctor's time machine,
until a confrontation with the deadly future leads to temporal hand-waving and
timey-wimey nonsense.

164) The Visitation -
Escaped alien convicts wreak havoc in 17th century England, against the
backdrop of the Black Plague. This is one story where the Doctor's newfound
ineffectualness is kind of grating, since it takes two episodes just to disable
a single clunky android.

165) The Mutants - This
story about a planet leaving colonization deserves more love than it gets,
thanks to an inventive alien life cycle and a blunt but well-taken metaphor
about colonialism. That said, it is very, very over-the-top.

166) The Frontier in
Space - The back
cover of the Target novelization of this story actually says, "only
when the Master appears on the scene do things really begin to move."
Which, FYI, is halfway through the story.
It's great that whoever wrote that back-cover copy was so bracingly honest
about this slow-moving tale of a drummed-up interstellar war. The Draconians
are fantastic aliens, however.

167) The Romans - the
first historical story to be humorous instead of serious, and it mostly works decently
well, thanks to William Hartnell's comedy chops.

168) State of Decay -
Vampires turn out to be the ancient enemies of the Time Lords, and they're
ruling a planet in a pocket universe in Hammer Horror Movie style. Super fun,
if you can get past the scenery-chewing.

169) Warriors of the
Deep - The Silurians and Sea Devils team up to start a nuclear holocaust in
a future version of the Cold War. If you can ignore the horrible special
effects and cheesy acting, the overabundance of subplots and zany action are
well worth it. Ends with a surprisingly poignant note.

170) Death to the
Daleks - As with "Power of the Daleks," this story puts the
Daleks at a huge disadvantage, forcing them to be cunning. There are some great
moments in the resulting chaos, but also some of the Daleks' most pathetic
moments of all time, as they start self-destructing for no reason.

171) The Reign of
Terror - one of the most grueling historical serials, with Ian and Barbara
locked in a squalid cell and nearly guillotined. The surviving episodes are
quite gripping.

172) Daleks in
Manhattan/Evolution of the Daleks - Years of nonsensical Dalek storylines
reach their peak in this Depression-era tale of pig/human hybrids and
Dalek/human chimeras. There are some fun moments here, but this story weakens
the Daleks, both as an enemy and as an idea.

173) The Two Doctors
- the weirdest of all the multi-Doctor stories, in which Patrick Troughton
becomes a red-headed cannibal gourmand. Kind of deliciously demented, but also
a recipe where none of the ingredients really goes together.

174) Battlefield - the
final appearance of the Brigadier, except for one spin-off episode. And he gets
a lovely sendoff. The rest of this story, about Arthurian knights who know the
Doctor as Merlin from some alternate future, is... fun enough, I guess.

175) Image of the
Fendahl - another story which I recently rewatched and had to shed some
rosy memories of. An ancient skull and a time-scanner are the keys to a plot to
resurrect a horrible slug creature, but luckily there's a local witch who can
help. It's a bit all over the place, but has some terrific moments.

176) The Android
Invasion - another story where the villain's plan isn't entirely
reasonable, but the story of androids replacing all the Doctor's friends does
have its charms. Mostly to do with Tom Baker clowning around with androids.

177) The Hand of Fear
- Sarah Jane's swansong is nothing special — she's possessed by an evil
alien hand, which turns into an evil alien — but it's such a beautiful
bittersweet farewell that the whole story seems magical by association.

178) The Mind of Evil
- some sinister prison experiments and a dispute with the Chinese over a
nerve gas missile barely combine into an adequate James Bond-y adventure. The
Keller Machine has a few alarming stand-out moments.

179) Kinda - a
Buddhist allegory in which colonists on an alien planet face both madness and
the return of a snake-like spirit of greed. It's very much like a middling
avant-garde play from the early 1980s, which makes sense given that it's the
work of an avant-garde playwright.

180) Mark of the Rani
- unusual, in that the main villain isn't trying to take over anything —
she just wants to harvest a brain chemical from workers, thus incidentally
turning them into Luddites.

181) The Keys of
Marinus - Terry Nation once again turns in an adventure serial, in which
the quest for "keys" leads to one scrape after another. It's a
grab-bag of mini-adventures, which gets shockingly dark when Barbara is almost
raped.

182) The Mysterious
Planet - the first installment of "Trial of a Time Lord," and
Robert Holmes' final proper script for the show. There are some great elements
here, including the psychotic Glitz and the selfish robot Drathro. But it's let
down by the actual "trial" sequences.

183) The Stolen
Earth/Journey's End - Russell T. Davies' penchant for overblown storytelling
reaches its final extreme here, in a story where the Daleks are trying to
destroy the universe. The second episode is 75 minutes of improbable plot
twists, plus Rose getting her own pet Doctor and poor Donna getting the shaft.

184) The Rescue - the
first introduction of a new companion ever, and a fun little story. The Doctor
confronting Koquillion is
magical.

185) The Nightmare of
Eden - Like many stories from the era where Douglas Adams was script
editor, the ideas are brilliant and prolific. But the campiness is overwhelming
and the "drugs are bad, mmmkay?" message is bludgeoning.

186) The Sea Devils -
The Master teams up with the string vest-wearing aquatic cousins of the
Silurians, in a mostly forgettable naval adventure.

187) The Underwater
Menace - depends on your tolerance for over-the-top shouty mad scientists
and silly fish people. I kind of love this story. Troughton is amazing in it.

188) Invasion of the
Dinosaurs - sigh. The special effects are so awful, and the padding so
obvious, that it's hard to love this story in which misguided scientists fill
London with dinosaurs so they can send some people back in time and create a
new "golden age." But bits of this story are magic, including Mike
Yates' crisis of conscience.

189) The War Machines
- another story where Hartnell's performance pretty much carries it, as he
strides around 1960s London like he owns the place, and faces off with
pseudo-Daleks. Some of the show's most inventive camera-work here.

190) Meglos - Tom
Baker's turn to play his own nemesis, as an evil cactus impersonates the
Doctor. The "superstition versus science" rift among the aliens is kind
of played out, and this story is outrageously padded, but it's still pretty
fun.

191) Marco Polo - beautiful
costumes, lush scenery... and a slow-moving plot about the Doctor and friends
trying to get the TARDIS back from the famed explorer.

192) The Celestial
Toymaker - another story with a somewhat inflated reputation. A seemingly
all-powerful being traps the Doctor and forces him to play games, a lot of
which are either super-abstract or super campy.

193) The Curse of the
Black Spot - a swashbuckling pirate story which quickly turns into a
hurt/comfort scenario where Amy is taking care of the injured Rory. There's
nothing wrong with a pirate ship that turns out to be a spaceship with an
overzealous medical A.I., but this story never finds its sea legs.

194) The Highlanders
- the final historical story, and based on telesnaps and the novelization,
it was nothing to write home about. But it's the first appearance of Jamie.

195) Arc of Infinity
- The Time Lords want to execute the Doctor because he's tied to the rogue
Time Lord Omega, but dealing with the threat turns out to be quite simple in
the end. Lots of pointless location scenes in Amsterdam, plus an evil chicken
henchman.

196) The Macra Terror
- I've watched the telesnap reconstruction of this one, and it's got a few
nice moments but is mostly mind-controlled colonists doing wacky chants. The
crab monsters are a bit of a letdown when they finally turn up.

197) The Armageddon
Factor - the final story in the "Key to Time" story, and it's a
bit of a mess. But the creepy Shadow has a few standout moments as a villain, Drax
the slacker Time Lord is fun, and the Doctor's final dilemma about what to do
with the all-powerful Key is also neat.

198) Galaxy 4 - basically
your standard "don't judge by appearances" parable, since the
beautiful aliens are evil and the ugly aliens are good. The robot Chumblies are
very, very cute.

199) Black Orchid - Cricket-playing
and dancing in the 1920s give way to a murder mystery and another one of the
show's endless series of doppelgangers, this time of the Doctor's companion
Nyssa. Sort of a palate-cleanser.

200) The TV Movie - Paul
McGann's sole outing on television is good fun, when you watch it as just a
piece of Who and not as the attempt
to start a new series. McGann is fantastic — but Eric Roberts as the Master
drags the whole thing way down.

Disappointments:

201) Attack of the
Cybermen - loses points for having a plot that's incomprehensible, even if
you've seen the earlier Cybermen stories it's referencing five times. Plus,
nothing happens for the first hour. Still, the Cyber-converted Lytton provides a
chilling moment.

202) Four to Doomsday
- A shipload of androids are on their way to conquer Earth, but never get
there, and the evil toad Mentor is defeated by rather a lot of folk dancing.

203) The King's
Demons - At this point, I'm not sure even the Master knows what he's doing
in these stories. This time, he's got a shapeshifting robot and he's trying to
prevent Magna Carta by acting French.

204) The Ambassadors
of Death - I have a huge soft spot for this story about returned astronauts
who are actually killer aliens who are actually innocent pawns. But it's kind
of a mess, due to tons of last-minute rewrites.

205) The Stones of
Blood - A Celtic goddess is actually an escaped alien prisoner, and the
Doctor has to outwit her, which isn't that hard. But it's still a fun story,
and Professor Amelia Rumford is one of the all-time great guest stars.

206) The Androids of
Tara - basically a silly "Prisoner of Zenda" riff, but there's
some nice sword-fighting and Mary Tamm gets to play two roles for once.

207) The Awakening - there's
a time rift and an evil gargoyle and people are being mean to each other.
Everything's solved by twiddling some knobs in the TARDIS.

208) Silver Nemesis -
a copy of "Remembrance of the Daleks," only worse and campier in
every way. This story throws in neo-Nazis and a 17th-century schemer, and then
has no clue what to do with them, other than some campy/funny set pieces here
and there. And the Cybermen have seldom been more pathetic.

209) The Twin Dilemma
- the one where the newly regenerated Doctor tries to strangle his companion.
You know what? It's not all terrible. Colin Baker brings a certain manic
delight to the role of the Doctor, and Mestor gets a few chilling moments as a
villain. The plot has some clever ideas, too. But yeah, mostly awful.

210) Dragonfire - only
memorable as the first appearance of Ace, the companion who helped make the
show awesome again. And there's some Raiders
of the Lost Ark-style head-melting. But it's also not trying very hard, as
the "cliffhanger" at the end of episode one shows.

211) Terror of the
Vervoids - an Agatha Christie murder mystery in space, which turns out to
be about killer plant creatures. On its own terms, this isn't an awful story,
and it's one of the rare times that Colin Baker gets to have some fun and be
heroic instead of being sidelined bickering with Peri. But it's best not to
think about it too much.

212) Destiny of the
Daleks - Terry Nation's final Dalek story, in which he forgets that the
Daleks aren't robots and makes them even more pathetic than they were in
"Death to the Daleks," facing off against disco-bots in an unwinnable
war. Davros is sort of wasted here as well.

213) The Myth Makers
- another funny historical epic, in which the Doctor is mistaken for Zeus
and comes up with the idea for the Trojan Horse. Based on the audios, kind of
disposable fluff.

214) Planet of Fire -
a miniaturized Master, a shapeshifting robot with an identity crisis, the
secret of Turlough's past and a shouty new American companion... there's stuff
here, for sure. But mostly, it's an awful mess.

215) Mindwarp - Does
the Doctor actually become evil in this segment of "Trial of a Time
Lord"? Or was the record tampered with? You never know, and you almost
don't care, because either way this is a painful experience.

216) Terminus - Given
the fact that the fate of the entire universe is at stake here, it's amazing
how forgettable this story is. "Short term memory's always the first to
go" sums up the experience of watching this tale of lepers in space.

217) The Wheel in Space - The
introduction of Zoe is charming, and the Doctor's confrontation with the
Cybermen is great. But the fourth Cybermen story to air in the space of a year
or so clearly has run out of ideas for what to do with them.

218) The Savages - I
may not have listened to the audios for this story after all, so this is purely
based on the novelization. It's a moralistic tale, in which the Doctor's
life-essence turns out to contain morality.

219) The Web Planet -
an ambitious alien story that sadly fails to get off the ground, thanks to
a slow, "etherial" atmosphere and overly mannered performances.

220) The Colony in
Space - in a nutshell, a zoning dispute, in which miners and colonists both
want the same planet, and the Master wants a doomsday weapon. The novelization
by Malcolm Hulke is way, way better, because it fleshes out these
one-dimensional characters who keep getting locked up and escaping on
television.

221) Planet of Giants
- The TARDIS crew gets miniaturized, and then randomly has to bring a
normal-sized murderer to justice. Truncated from four episodes to three,
because it was so dull.

222) Power of Kroll -
How does a story about a giant monster get to be so bland? A lot of the
show's staples are here, including misunderstood natives and evil corporations
— but it's at its most lifeless.

223) Underworld - a
VFX disaster, but also just kind of a lackluster story. The clever horror pastiches
of the early Tom Baker years are replaced by a kludgey Greek mythology spoof.

224) The Krotons - Philip
Madoc damn near single-handedly saves this one as a fanatic launching a
revolution among the enslaved Gonds. But the evil Krotons are just too
pathetic. Take a drink every time they get lost and say, "Direction
point."

225) The Time Monster
- some great moments here, including a TARDIS inside a TARDIS inside a
TARDIS, but also an insane preponderance of fluff as the Master starts to seem
played out as a villain.

226) Paradise Towers
- kind of a cute but fluffy story in which the perfect building tries to
kill the people who have the temerity to try and live there. Just remember, Red
Kangs are the best Kangs, as everybody knows.

227) The Smugglers - Like
"The Savages," this is one I haven't really seen/heard much of. The
novelization makes it seem like a dull pirate epic.

228) The Dominators -
so sad. Aliens with massive shoulder-pads push everybody around, but their
robots are always running out of battery life. The peace-loving natives are
sweet, but this story never really gets going.

229) The Monster of
Peladon - The political metaphor about striking miners was highly topical
in 1974, but this story drags immensely and feels like a misguided sequel to
"Curse of Peladon." Sarah Jane Smith teaching a young queen about
empowerment does have its moments, though.

230) The Enemy of the
World - still stinging from the letdown here. This newly rediscovered
six-part adventure, where the Doctor's doppelganger is an evil Mexican dictator,
is tragically silly and dull. Turns out there are some things even Patrick
Troughton can't save.

231) The Faceless
Ones - Aliens replace people with doppelgangers on board an airplane, which
isn't enough of a plot to sustain six episodes. Ben and Polly wander out of the
story halfway through, and you wish you could too.

232) Time Flight - The
Master traps a Concorde jet on prehistoric Earth, as part of a plan so complex
that even he seems not to understand
it. The worst of the scenery-chewing Anthony Ainley Master stories.

233) Delta and the
Bannerman - the Welsh doo-wop one, where a greaser eats royal jelly to
become a queen bee's husband. If you take it on its own terms, it's basically
okay — but not anything you'd want to watch over and over.

234) The Gunfighters
- As with "Delta," fans have tried to rehabilitate this comedy
Western musical, but it really is both campy and dull, and when it aired, it
had the lowest audience appreciation in the show's history.

235) The Horns of
Nimon - another kludgey Greek mythology pastiche, and one of the most
over-the-top stories in the show's history. There are some fun ideas here, including
the Nimon life cycle, but they're buried under silliness.

236) The Space
Pirates - How can a show called "Space Pirates" be so dull? There
should be rum and swashbuckling and parrots and walking the plank. Instead,
there's avuncular ore prospectors and grouchy space cops, and utterly dull
betrayals.

237) The Sensorites -
This story about telepathic aliens and crazy humans is where the strain of
cranking out 44 episodes a year starts to show. The Sensorites are among the
worst aliens ever featured on Who.

238) Time and the
Rani - the worst regeneration story, and overall, kind of an embarrassment.
The plot revolves around a giant space brain, Albert Einstein, and pink leg
warmers.

239) Fear Her - A
little girl whose squiggles come to life turns out to be bonded to an alien
that misses its swarm, just as the girl misses her dead father — but luckily,
the Olympics happen.

240) The Ultimate Foe
- "Trial of a Time Lord" crashes to an ignominious end, as the
Doctor's prosecutor turns out to be an alternate future Doctor. (?!) The final
episode of "Trial" is one of the most baffling things we've ever
seen.

241) Timelash - Yes,
this really is the worst story of all time. Just awful. Avon from Blake's 7 is Richard III, and the Loch
Ness Monster (again!) is an evil dictator who wants to marry Peri. Oh, and H.G.
Wells is a prat.

Thanks to Meredith for
the pictures, and to Alasdair for the feedback.